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Working with and for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities for over 50 years.

Friday, February 20, 2009

Friday Wrap Up: Bills This Week

North Carolina:

This week the General Assembly continued its review of how the economic stimulus package would affect the current budget crisis.

Bills filed:

HB 176: Housing Trust Fund Appropriation-AdamsThis bill will appropriate fifty million dollars to the North Carolina Housing Finance Agency. This funding request is for the 2009-2010 fiscal year.HB 177: Healthy Families and Health Workplaces Act-AdamsThis bill is the paid sick leave bill. This bill would allow covered employees to earn a minimum number of paid sick days each year. Covered workers would earn one hour of paid sick time for every thirty hours worked, up to a maximum of seven days per year.HB 179: Accessible Electronic Info Act/Blind/Disabled-AdamsThere is appropriated from the General Fund to the Department ofHealth and Human Services the sum of seventy-five thousand dollars ($75,000) for the2009-2010 fiscal year to be used by the Division of Services for the Blind within theDepartment of Health and Human Services to establish an accessible electronic information service for blind and disabled persons in this State.HB 207: Safer Communities Act-Harrison.This bill would amend the Safer Communities Act to include people with disabilities.SECTION 1. G.S. 14-3 reads as rewritten:"§ 14-3. Punishment of misdemeanors, infamous offenses, offenses committed in secrecy and malice, or with deceit and intent to defraud, or with ethnicanimosity. Animosity based upon ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, ordisability; punishment of felony committed with animosity based uponethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, or disability.

HB190: Medicaid Improper Claims Software/Funds-StamThis bill would appropriate three billion dollars annually to the Department of Health and Human services to purchase enhanced software so that the department can identify and reject improper Medicaid claims prior to the claims being paid.

HB221: Oversight of Licensing Boards-K.Alexander.This bill would require certain licensing boards be audited annually, specify a date for filing of reports and establish sanctions for failure to file.HB 231: Positive Behavior Support Position Funds-Glazier.This bill would appropriate from the General Fund to the Department of Public Instruction two hundred eighty-five dollars in recurring funding for the fiscal years of 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 to establish three new positive behavior support positions at the Department of public Instructions

Budget:The Senate continued the process this week of reviewing the stimulus package and its effect on the state. The big topic was the education stimulus package and how the money would be broken down into specific funding silos. The federal stimulus package will not permit major cuts to current state funding. This is due to a stipulation that deals with maintenance of effort. For the education budget this means that Title 1 funding can not dip bellow the state funding levels of 2005-2006 fiscal year or the state of North Carolina can not access the stimulus money.

The Medicaid budget includes the same stipulation of maintenance of effort and it also adds in clarification that eligibility cannot be adjusted. The Medicaid stimulus review was cancelled this week and will be rescheduled for next week. North Carolina will see approximately $2.35 billion to help us with our Medicaid needs. However, even with the stimulus package we will still see deep cuts in health and human services as we begin the 2009-2010 fiscal budget.

Overall the budget of North Carolina for the current fiscal year is facing a $2 billion dollar deficit. Today we received news that the possible deficit for the 2009-2010 fiscal year could be in the range of $4 billion dollars.

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The Arc of North Carolina 2011 Legislative Agenda.

The Arc of North Carolina advocates for and with families and people with cognitive and developmental disabilities. We believe that the following legislative agenda promotes our goals of advocacy, inclusion, and access to the communities we live in.

The Arc of North Carolina Proposed Policy Agenda 2011

Budget:

The Arc of North Carolina understands the current budget constraints that the state of North Carolina finds itself in due to the economic recession. During this critical time it is more important than ever to protect needed services for people with developmental and intellectual disabilities.We encourage the members of the General Assembly to do the following things to protect the integrity of community-based services for people with developmental and intellectual disabilities in our state.

No additional cuts to state-funded services for people with developmental disabilities.

Apply for 1915 (i) State Plan services for adults with developmental disabilities targeting supports that currently utilize state general fund appropriations and utilizing those funds a Medicaid match.

Add an additional CAP-DD Waiver for people with developmental disabilities who have significant behavioral and or medical needs.

Raise the Supports Waiver limit to 25 thousand dollars.

Utilize the Supports Intensity Scale as an initial eligibility tool for entrance into the CAP waivers with a reconsideration process utilizing other information.

Manage all of developmental disability services from a state system utilizing existing local structures where appropriate.

Housing:Fair Housing Act Amendment.

This legislation prohibits discrimination on the basis or receipt of housing assistance. Many people with disabilities receive housing assistance. This legislation if passed would assist in opening more housing opportunities to the disability community.

Education:Study ways to allow students with developmental disabilities to access current courses in our community college system. Included in this study we must look at ways to offer real job skill training to students with developmental and intellectual disabilities.

The Arc of North Carolina

Welcome to The Arc of North Carolina's official policy blog. The Arc has been serving people with disabilities for more than 50 years. In an effort to reach out to our statewide community about issues that effect us we have established this blog.

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Opinions expressed on this blog are not necessarily the opinion of the The Arc of North Carolina or The Arc of the United States.The Arc of North Carolina is a non-profit and non-partisan organization. It does not endorse candidates or political parties.